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Arvest Bank’s one-day donation blitz to help reduce food insecurity in North Central Arkansas resulted in a record number of donations to the third annual campaign.

Volunteers in Mountain Home, Yellville, Flippin and Gassville collected $20,275 from residents in those communities. Those donations will provide 101,375 meals to local children facing food insecurity. For eleven hours on April 27, dozens of volunteers took shifts collecting donations at intersections and in front of participating stores.

All of the donations benefit the Food Bank of North Central Arkansas’ backpack program, as well as backpack programs managed by other hunger relief organizations in the area. Through backpack programs, school children who face food insecurity are sent home with supplemental food on weekends and holidays, times when they don’t have access to school meal programs and when they likely would not receive enough to eat at home.

“The generosity of our friends and neighbors in these communities is always encouraging and humbling, and are incredibly grateful to everyone who contributed to Feed the Pack this year,” said Sally Gilbert, market president of Arvest Bank in Mountain Home. “This is how we make a difference in our community and, most importantly, for the several hundred children who will receive the food these donations will provide, instead of being hungry. We certainly could not have reached this record number of donations without our wonderful volunteers for them, we are very grateful.”

Area schools and businesses also held change drives, give back nights and other events to help collect donations to Feed the Pack in advance of the event. For every one-dollar donation, hunger relief organizations are able to provide five meals to those in need.

“One-third of children in our area face food insecurity, so there is a very large and widespread need,” said Jeff Quick, chief executive officer of the Food Bank of North Central Arkansas. “We see an increased need during the summer months so Feed the Pack will help all of the agencies in our area who provide a backpack program, support these children for months to come.”

Since creating Feed the Pack Day in 2016, Arvest Bank has now collected more than $57,250 in donations, which translates to a donation of more than 286,250 meals that were donated to local backpack programs.

Feed the Pack Day is one of several community events that are held in support of Arvest Bank’s 8th annual 1 Million Meals campaign that challenges bank associates, customers and community members to participate in fundraising efforts and nonperishable food drives to fight hunger in the more than 120 communities the bank serves. The initiative is needed, as the United States Department of Agriculture reports more than 12 percent of American households surveyed in 2015 were food insecure.

The goal of the two-month, bank-wide effort is to collect enough food or monetary donations to provide at least one million meals to local, hungry families. Donations to Arvest’s 1 Million Meals campaign may be dropped off at any Arvest Bank location by June 2 or by calling (866) 952-9523. Arvest credit card customers can donate Arvest Flex Rewards™ points by visiting arvestflexrewards.com and clicking on the 1 Million Meals banner, and customers who use the Arvest Go mobile banking app may contribute through the app on their smartphone.

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